Portable electronic devices such as tablet-based computers and so-called smart telephones are generally intended for handheld use and ease of portability. Many of these devices have a touch-sensitive display. A touch-sensitive display, also known as a touch-screen display, is particularly useful on handheld devices, which tend to be small and have limited space for user input and output.
In many cases the touch-screen display is substantially rectangular in shape, but not a square. Such displays are understood to have an aspect ratio of other than 1:1. Using such a display with its longer sides oriented horizontally is typically understood to represent a landscape orientation. On the other hand, using such a display with the shorter sides oriented horizontally is typically understood to represent a portrait orientation.
Some devices automatically select a particular modality in these regards as an executed function of the application being presented. Such a device may automatically present a word-processing application, for example, using a portrait modality. This same device may also automatically present a video-playback application using a landscape modality.
Some devices are capable of detecting, at least to some degree, their own physical orientation. For example, in some cases when a user is holding a tablet-based device and they physically rotate the device by 90 degrees, the device (using, for example, an accelerometer) detects that change in orientation and automatically makes a corresponding change to rotate displayed materials to match the new physical orientation of the device.
The foregoing approaches are useful to an extent. This is not to say, however, that existing approaches provide an adequate solution in each and every application setting.